Apple says goodbye to Macworld, without Jobs

Schiller kicked off his keynote by introducing a new version of Apple's iLife suite of multimedia software. Expected by the end of the month, iLife 09 will include jazzed up editing software that integrates with Google Maps to let users create maps of where their videos and photos were taken. The suite's iPhoto software will have new face-recognition features and will also be integrated with Facebook and Flickr.

The new Garageband 09 software will come with new multimedia piano and guitar lessons for beginners. For $4.99, users will be able to buy a lesson from music stars such as Sting, John Fogerty,and Norah Jones. Budding musicians will be able to follow the lessons on their Macs, looking at videos of the instructors, finger positioning, and musical scores all at the same time. "It's so simple and such a breakthrough way to learn music," Schiller said.

Available immediately, the iWork office suite will let users access an online service called iWork.com, where they can share iWork documents, Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF documents with others, much in the same fashion as Google Docs. Apple plans to eventually start charging for iWork.com, but for now the service is available as a free beta for Apple users, Schiller said.

Macworld is run by International Data Group, which also owns the IDG News Service.